Adventures in Classic Television and American Culture
A new era in television begins this week, as Merv Griffin enters the late-night talk show fray with his debut on CBS. (Guests for that first show: Joe Namath, Woody Allen, Leslie Uggams.) Merv's hardly a stranger to the game, having helmed a daytime show on NBC as well as his syndicated chatfest for Group W, but as Neil Hickey writes, things are a little different now. This is the first time ever…
W o, no matter what anyone says; a movie called If You Go Down in the Woods Today is not going to end well, even if you try to style it as a comedy. But don't take my word for it; that's the target of John's essay this week at Cult TV Blog. Last month, the Hadley household finished up the four-season run of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on DVD; this week, at Silver Scenes , the Metzingers look…
I t's been awhile since I've popped up here on a Wednesday, and I'm embarrassed to have slacked off the pace. What else can I say but that sometimes life happens? Between promoting my last novel, writing my next novel, and steering my way through a potential nervous breakdown, it juet doesn't leave as much time for the Wednesday essay as I'd like. I appreciate your undestanding, and hope you'll…
A ll this week on NBC's You Don't Say! , it's the battle of the doctors, as Dr. Joyce Brothers takes on Dr. Frank Baxter. Who is Dr. Frank Baxter? Well, in 1965 you would have recognized him. According to the always-reliable Wikipedia , "Baxter is best remembered for his appearances from 1956–1962 as 'Dr. Research' in The Bell Laboratory Science Series of television specials. These films became a…
Y ou all know about my affection for Gene Barry's detective series Burke's Law . (If you don't, you haven't been reading very closely.) It was a stylish mix of humor and police drama, all done with tongue-in-cheek and twinkle-in-eye. But Burke's Law , as we know it, is now done. Starting this fall, the show's jumping on the secret agent bandwagon popularized by The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Amos Burke,…
Y ou know, it's amazing how much less exciting Fridays become after you've retired. It's almost a letdown, thinking that another week has come and gone, another seven days that you won't get a chance to replay. Ah, just one of the things that runs through your mind when you realize that you are old. Let's look at some old television news instead. I don't know about you, but " The Sweet Scene of…
N etwork television had, by 1969, converted almost entirely to color. (And if you don't think it's a pain putting the little "C" after all these shows, you've got another think coming. Someone at TV Guide must have felt the same way, because it isn't long after this that they start labeling those few shows that air in black-and-white instead.) You'll notice, though, that there are still a handful…
U ntil its reappearance as a guest-star vehicle for Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood , it was mostly only oldtimers like us who remembered Lancer , the western which ran on CBS for two seasons from 1969 to 1971. As is the case with so many Westerns, Lancer thrives on drama involving intertwined family trees; Bonanza 's Ben Cartwright sired three sons with three different mothers, The…
W t Cult TV Blog John leads off the week with a very interesting comparison between the 1967 Avengers episode " Never, Never Say Die " and the 1967 movie Night of the Big Heat , which was later released here with the evocative title Island of the Burning Damned .) Is he right or wrong? Check it out. At RealWeegieMidget , Gill is back with a look at three neo-noirs from the 1960s , all of which…
T ere's not much to report today; I mentioned the addition of the Milwaukee listing for WTMJ on Saturday, and appropriately enough I've listed it after all the Chicago stations, just as it was in the issue. Besides, when you have the following, you don't need anything more. It's the description for Double Crossed Fool , the movie at 3:00 p.m. on WBKB: "Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito run into…
W ell, look at who's on the cover. Groucho! And he's either pulling our leg, or he's undergone something of a change during the six years he's been doing You Bet Your Life on radio and television. Oh, he's still the wisecracking fast-talker we've come to know and love from all these years; what's changed is the way he looks at people, specifically the contestants on his show. "My estimation of…
W t Cult TV Blog , John revisits the BBC 1980s-90s series Forty Minutes (not to be confused with 60 Minutes ), and the episode " Separate Tables ," which takes us back stage at a residential hotel, and how they work. David's moved to Tuesday nights in 1978 in his Comfort TV survey of 1970s TV. What should we remember from then? How about ABC's big-hitter lineup: Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley,…
T here's not much to add here that I didn't discuss on Saturday. You see above the notice about the Watergate hearings; there were none scheduled for this Friday, and none were held, leaving the night open for the College All-Star Game at 8:30 p.m. What interests me is this movie at midnight on KMSP: War Hunt . "In Korea, Pvt. Raymond Endore wins the high regard of his captain for his one-man…
T he year is 1967, and you're a Navy flier in Vietnam. While flying a mission on May 18 of that year, you're shot down over North Vietnam and taken prisoner. For nearly six years, until March 4, 1973, you're shuttled from prison to prison, including the infamous "Hanoi Hilton." During that time, you've missed Laugh-In , the Smothers Brothers, and Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. You didn't see…
L et's get back to normal here and start off the week right. Since we could all use a good laugh, John at Cult TV Blog has the answer: the Monty Python Science Fiction Sketch . I think it marks the first time I ever heard the word "blancmange," and life hasn't been the same since. At Comfort TV , David continues his series on " Still Stuck in the 1970s ,"which is as good a catalog as you're going…
I n Saturday's article about Sesame Street , I mentioned how about 20% of the stations showing the program were commercial, not educational. We can see that in today's listings, where three commercial stations have it on; all three are CBS affiliates, and all three air Sesame Street immediately prior to Captain Kangaroo . That's seems like good scheduling to me; Children's Television Workshop…
I ndulge me for a moment in a personal reminiscence. It was the summer of 1971, the year before we moved to the World's Worst Town™, and we were on vacation at a lake resort in Alexandria, Minnesota. We were often in the area during the summer, considering Alex was only about an hour from the town of infamy, and while I have nothing against the place other than KCMT, that doesn't mean I'm in any…
I ran across this old article in my digital files from that awful Covid Theater year of 2020, Alison Herman's story " We're Going to Run Out of TV " ( complete with the panic headline; exclamation point optional). "[A] drought is upon us," she says. And even though it's dated (she was referring to is the lack of new television due to the virus), the message still pertains today. Nonsense! In…
T onight, CBS Reports , hosted by Charles Kuralt, investigates " The Spring Grove Experiment ," a look at two patients given LSD treatment at Spring Grove State Hospital in Maryland. "Films show patients under the effects of LSD: a woman, who suffered a nervous breakdown, and a male alcoholic. Six months later at their homes, they describe the effects the therapy has had on their lives." Hint:…